


Of Senses and Safewords

by Jadelyn



Series: Puppy [5]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Aftercare, Dom Jaskier | Dandelion, Dom/sub, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Safeword Use, Sensory Overload, Sub Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Subdrop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:28:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26945191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadelyn/pseuds/Jadelyn
Summary: A normal play session triggers sensory overload and an intense subdrop, leaving Jaskier trying to pick up the pieces and take care of Geralt despite his attempts to reject the care and comfort he feels unworthy of.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Puppy [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950391
Comments: 26
Kudos: 376
Collections: Abby's Witcher Collection





	Of Senses and Safewords

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware that this fic takes place from Geralt's perspective, and gives you a front-row seat to his self-loathing and self-sabotage issues in the context of feeling like a failure for needing to stop a scene. Just remember he's not exactly a reliable narrator when it comes to his expectations of himself.
> 
> Based on a prompt from reader Assthorn in comments on Maybe Someday: "If you wanna do some h/c Geralt having subdrop? Jaskier convincing him he needs and deserves care?" Hope I did it justice!

Geralt strained against the ropes tying his arms above him - not hard enough to tear the knots free, but enough to feel them rubbing against his wrists - and gasped, hips bucking up into Jaskier's touch. He was close, so close…

Jaskier's hand vanished. Geralt couldn't hold back a wordless cry, desperate and begging into the darkness behind the blindfold Jaskier had tied over his eyes.

"Shh, pup," Jaskier whispered. His hand brushed Geralt's cheek, just for a moment, withdrawing when he tried to turn his head and nuzzle into the touch.

"Please," he gasped. "Please, Jas - sir, I need - I need to come, please, I'll do anything." There was no room for shame or holding back, the fire of three desperate, awful, wonderful edges burning that out of him for the moment.

"Anything?"

Geralt nodded frantically. "Anything, please."

He could _hear_ Jaskier's smile as he said, "Then be good, darling, and take what I choose to give you until I decide you've had enough."

Geralt whined pitifully, but subsided.

"Good boy." Jaskier's hands roamed over his body, touching and caressing everywhere except his cock while he panted and writhed. It was an exquisite torture.

Finally, finally Jaskier wrapped those long fingers around his cock again and began to stroke him slowly. He was so worked up already that it didn't take long to bring him back to the edge. "Please," he begged, and suddenly it was all he could say, over and over again. "Please…please…please…"

Just as he started to think this was it, that Jaskier would let him come this time, it all stopped again. Geralt slumped back against the bed with a low, pitiful sound. Jaskier shushed him again, then began with the feather-light touches to his chest and hips and thighs again.

Only this time, something was…wrong. It wasn't just the normal discomfort and need.

_It shouldn't be this bad._

It was far from the first time they'd done this. Far from the first time Geralt had let Jaskier bind him and muffle his senses, then work him up to the edge over and over again until all he could focus on was Jaskier's touch and the sweet torment of it. And it had been fine this time, too, through the first few edges.

But for some reason it had twisted and begun going…wrong, somehow. It was like the biochemical rush had slipped a little to the side and left him unbalanced, and now he was falling. Suddenly the ropes were chafing against his wrists like molten-hot chains, and his shoulders felt half-wrenched from their sockets just from having his arms above his head. The darkness behind the blindfold turned smothering and claustrophobic; Geralt found himself widening his pupils as far as he could in a futile effort to pierce the veil and see something, anything of the world around him, and his failure to do so was sending sick panic clawing up the back of his throat. The soft scraping of lute-calluses over his skin felt like scouring sand scrubbing against him.

Geralt was nearly overwhelmed by the sudden all-consuming urge to lash out. Just to make it all fucking _stop_. The only thing that stopped him was the terror of what his mutated strength could do to Jaskier if he wasn't careful, a terror he'd nurtured for years until it was as much a reflex as breathing. Maybe even more so, given the level of conscious control he could exert over his breath when he needed to.

"Geralt?" Jaskier sounded concerned. Concerned? There was something sharp in his voice, anyway. Maybe he was just angry, because…

_Shit. Fuck._ Geralt had stopped himself from lashing out, but he'd obviously tensed or something, because Jaskier had realized something was wrong. _Fuck, fuck, fuck!_ Geralt sucked in a harsh breath between his teeth and tried to force pliancy back into his muscles. He desperately willed himself to relax so that Jaskier could continue enjoying himself rather than interrupting things to deal with whatever stupid bullshit Geralt's stupid fucking defective brain was trying to pull on them this time.

"Geralt." Oh, gods, he thought, he'd never heard Jaskier sound like that before. He _was_ angry, wasn't he, and of course he was, why wouldn't he be? They'd been having a perfectly good time right up until Geralt had ruined it.

"Talk to me," Jaskier said, and he sounded almost frightened now. The least Geralt could do, he thought, was obey such a simple command. He spared half a moment to wish, a little wildly, that Jaskier had asked for anything but words. He knew Geralt was terrible with them.

He thought about words. Thought about the safeword Jaskier had insisted they have. Thought about maybe using it now - but no, that was stupid. This whole thing was stupid. It wasn't that big of a deal, just discomfort, just pain, only that. It was what he was made to endure anyway. And at least enduring this pain would make Jaskier happy, which seemed a better use of the ability than just making him a more effective killer. He didn't need to use his word, if he could just get a fucking grip on himself for a moment…

"Wyvern."

The word slipped between his lips without his permission, more air than sound.

"Shit," Jaskier said, sounding horrified. "Oh gods, all right darling. Let me help you, here -" Jaskier's fingers fumbled at his wrists for a moment and then the ropes fell away, leaving him free. Jaskier gently helped him move his arms back down, easing the tension in Geralt's shoulders, then he was working on the blindfold.

When it came off, Geralt flinched and hissed. He'd forgotten how widely open his pupils were, and the sudden light striking them lanced through his head and produced an instant headache. Stupid, he thought. It was the kind of mistake that was understandable in a young witcher, one still getting used to his senses, but Geralt had no such excuse.

But Jaskier didn't chide him for it. He simply leaned in, hands and body casting protective shadows over Geralt's face. "It's all right, love," he said, keeping his voice low and soothing. "Do you want to stay laying down, or would you like to sit up?"

"Up," Geralt demanded instantly. Lying down was too passive, too vulnerable.

"All right," Jaskier said. "Keep your eyes closed for now, I'll go do something to dim the lights in a second."

Jaskier's hands, as they guided and nudged and supported Geralt into sitting up with his back against the headboard, were almost unbearably gentle. An inexplicable rage rushed through Geralt. He shouldn't need this, shouldn't _want_ this, especially when the entire situation was his own fucking fault.

He found himself baring his teeth and growling at Jaskier. He'd mostly gotten his pupils under control, so he cracked his eyes open enough to glare.

Jaskier seemed bizarrely unfazed by it. Though perhaps it wasn't that surprising, given that this was the same man who'd been gut-punched by the Butcher of Blaviken within twenty minutes of their first meeting and still followed him anyway.

"Growl all you like, darling," Jaskier said. "I'm not going to flee in terror - you know your whole 'big scary witcher' act has never worked on me, anyway."

No, Geralt had to admit, it hadn't. Which was terrifying in its own way. Jaskier was too fucking trusting, and one of these days Geralt's control was bound to slip and Jaskier was going to get hurt.

But he couldn't get his tongue around the words to explain all of that, so he just looked away. Jaskier, thankfully, was smart enough not to gloat about it. Geralt might actually have snapped and done something unforgivable, if he had.

_More unforgivable than you already have, ruining the evening for him?_ A nasty, hissing voice in the back of his head asked. _The way you always ruin things?_ He closed his eyes again.

Jaskier's weight left the bed. Geralt heard movement, scraping, and then the glow behind his eyelids subsided back below the pain threshold. Opening his eyes, Geralt saw that Jaskier had extinguished the lamp and moved the changing-screen in front of the fire to block most of its light, leaving only a candle to see by. Perfect for Geralt’s over-heightened senses, but not nearly enough for human eyes, as evidenced by the rattle of a cup being knocked over as Jaskier groped for it to fill it.

Still, the bard managed, returning to the bed and handing Geralt a cup of water. "Drink," Jaskier said.

Geralt took the cup, but didn't drink. He watched his hand trembling slightly, the water in the cup rippling with each tremor, and fought the urge to throw it across the fucking room.

"Geralt." Jaskier's voice was infuriatingly gentle, but there was tension there beneath it. "I'm really worried about you right now, love. Please drink at least a little, if for no other reason than to ease my mind."

Geralt growled, but lifted the cup and sipped at it anyway. "I know what you're doing," he pointed out.

"That's fine. As long as it's working."

"Didn't say it was." But he found himself taking another drink, the thought of assuaging Jaskier's worry overcoming his reluctance to accept care or comfort at the moment.

But that in and of itself made it starkly clear just how dangerous Jaskier's continued presence was. If he stayed, he would continue to insist on showering Geralt with care and comfort he didn't want and couldn't bear to accept right now.

So he took a deep breath, steeled himself against Jaskier's reaction, and said, "Enough. I'll be fine. Go on - get out of here. Leave me alone. I don't want company right now."

Jaskier's eyebrows shot up. "We'll that's just too damn bad," he replied. "I'll give you some space, I'll stay over here." Suiting actions to words, he retreated to the stool in front of the washbasin. "But I'm not leaving."

Geralt let his mouth twist in a mocking sneer. "What happened to 'respecting boundaries'?" he demanded. "You always go on about that shit. Was it just another pretty lie?" He could see the hurt in Jaskier's eyes now, even in the dim light, but forced himself to press on anyway. "I thought the whole point of this afterwards bullshit was that you give me what I ask for. Which is to be _left alone."_

"I never said anything about giving you what you _ask for_ ," Jaskier said, shaking his head. "Right now my responsibility is to give you the care you _need_ , which includes not letting you make things worse by isolating yourself."

Geralt's breath hitched sharply. He took refuge in anger. "And who the fuck do you think you are to tell me what I 'need', like you know better than I do what that means?"

Jaskier snorted. "Oh, you know. Only someone who's known you for over a decade. Only the one person you've trusted enough to let see you like this." The bard leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees, and fixed Geralt with a hard look. "I know you, Geralt. Whether you like to hear that or not, it's true. I know you well enough to be thoroughly acquainted with your self-destructive tendencies and the way you push people away to prove to yourself that everyone leaves you eventually. And I have no intention of letting you pull that shit with me tonight."

Shock lanced through him to hear it said with such blunt confidence, followed rapidly by something that might have been terror. "You know fuck all, Jaskier," Geralt snapped, but even he could hear that it was fear in his voice rather than anger.

"Maybe," Jaskier said, refusing to rise to the bait. "But even if that's true and I know fuck-all about you specifically, I know plenty about this kind of play. I know that it's based on an exchange: you give me your trust and cede control of the situation to me, and in return I accept responsibility for your well-being." Jaskier shook his head. "It would be a terrible failure of that responsibility if I let you push me away like this."

Geralt drew his legs up and wrapped an arm around his knees. "So fail in that responsibility, then," he said. "I'm not some delicate noblewoman who'll fall apart if not coddled sufficiently."

"No," Jaskier agreed. "But you are a man who deserves to be treated well nevertheless."

"Not a-" _man_ , Geralt started to say, a reflexive denial of anything that might align him with a humanity he didn't want.

But Jaskier just rolled his eyes. "Yes, I know," he said, breaking in before Geralt could say it. "Poor choice of words. But whatever you are or aren't, my dear witcher, the fact remains that you are a person - one I'm quite fond of, in fact - who I have not only the responsibility but the privilege and the pleasure of caring for."

Geralt watched in silence as Jaskier slowly stood and came back over to the bed, seating himself next to Geralt against the headboard but not touching.

"Why?" he asked finally, hating how quiet and small his voice had gone.

"Why do I want to care for you?"

Geralt nodded.

Jaskier smiled a little sadly. "Does it matter why?" he countered. "Whether it makes sense to you or not, the fact remains that I _do_ want to take care of you." He carefully reached out and tucked an errant lock of pale hair behind Geralt's ear. "You don't have to understand it or agree with it," he whispered. "You just have to believe that I am being truthful with you when I say it. Can you give me that much? Only that?"

Defenses crumbled in the face of that steady blue gaze. It wasn't so much to ask, really, was it? To stop fighting to understand the _why_ and simply trust that Jaskier wouldn't lie about this?

Geralt cocked his head, considering. He knew his eyes had that animalistic flash in the dark that so unnerved humans, but Jaskier met his stare fearlessly, his countenance writ only with concern and tenderness. Jaskier’s heart continued to beat steadily and evenly, his scent a clean blend of caring and worry. The bard might be an idiot to waste his time so, trying to gentle something like Geralt, but his desire to do so was genuine.

At last Geralt nodded. Jaskier gave him an encouraging smile. "Lovely, thank you darling. Put the cup down, first - we wouldn't want it to spill and get the bed wet."

He'd more than half-forgotten he was still holding it. He took a moment to finish the rest of the water it still held before doing as Jaskier had asked, and was rewarded with another, wider smile when he turned back.

"Good," Jaskier said. He reached out and tugged at Geralt's shoulder. "Come on, darling, lie down - there, yes, just like that, see? Perfect." He nudged and guided and got Geralt lying on his side, curled against Jaskier's outstretched legs with his head on Jaskier's thigh.

Geralt wrapped his arms around Jaskier's leg and closed his eyes, enveloped by the comforting musk of his scent and soothed by gentle fingers running through his hair. The remnants of his earlier anger, already blunted and redirected, began to properly fade, taking with it some of the seething self-hatred and -blame.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled at last.

"For what, love?" Jaskier sounded genuinely confused.

"Ruining the evening by not being able to handle it and keep going."

Jaskier's hand stuttered a little in its rhythmic motion. "You didn't ruin anything, dearest."

"Oh really?" Geralt asked wryly. "You were planning to have to stop and deal with this kind of shit instead of continuing what we were doing?"

"Just because things didn't go quite as planned doesn't mean they're ruined." Before Geralt could keep arguing, Jaskier changed the subject. "Do you think you could tell me what happened? What changed? If I know what went wrong I can adjust, try to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Wasn't anything you did," Geralt muttered. "I was just too…fucking weak to handle it and keep going."

Jaskier tapped the side of Geralt's neck in mild reprimand. "None of that," he said sharply. "You know better than that, Geralt. You know I never want you to just endure or handle things you're not enjoying."

"Hm."

"Besides, that's not quite what I was asking, anyway. Because something changed, just before we stopped - we've done this before plenty of times, but all of a sudden something was wrong. I'm trying to understand what."

"I…don't know," Geralt admitted. "Just…everything was wrong, somehow. Touch hurt, the position hurt, the blindfold suddenly made me feel claustrophobic. I almost snapped and lashed out at you just to make it all stop." His shoulders hunched as he admitted to the shame of what still felt like failure.

Jaskier was quiet for a moment. "It sounds like that last edge set off a sensory overload of sorts. Too much input, or the wrong inputs, and you just needed it to stop." He tucked his fingers under Geralt's chin and turned his head up to meet Jaskier's eyes. "You did exactly what you were supposed to do in that situation, Geralt. I need you to know that. It's not weak to need to stop. If anything, you're protecting us both by stopping things before they get worse."

"Protecting us both?" Geralt echoed dubiously.

"I mean it," Jaskier said. "By using your safeword to call a stop to things, you keep me from having to bear the guilt of hurting you. And you protect yourself from further harm, which makes it less likely that the whole event will turn out to be so traumatizing for either of us that we can't play like that in the future."

"Huh." He'd never thought of it like that. He wasn’t entirely sure he believed it - Jaskier was nothing if not adept in spinning tales that sounded like they made sense regardless of how much truth they did or didn’t contain - but he could, perhaps, grudgingly allow for the possibility that he hadn’t completely fucked up.

“So, thank you,” Jaskier added. “For using your word, and for letting me help take care of you after. I know you don’t allow that easily.”

“Hm.” The silence that fell was comfortable, and together with the relative darkness and Jaskier’s hand carding through his hair Geralt felt himself finally beginning to relax.

“Thank _you_ ,” he whispered in turn, a few minutes later.

“For what?”

“For not leaving.”

Jaskier made a quiet, wounded sound, and suddenly he was moving, sliding down to lie flat on the bed. He pulled Geralt close, wrapped his arms around his shoulders, and pressed his lips into Geralt’s hair. “Never,” he said fiercely.

And perhaps it was the exhaustion beginning to sink into his bones, or the slightly floaty feeling Jaskier’s gentle caresses had surrounded him in - not as intense as the usual haze after they played, but still good, and Geralt was _almost_ prepared to admit that maybe Jaskier was onto something with all the afterwards bullshit - or something else, but for a moment, just as he fell asleep, Geralt believed him.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone has any suggestions or requests for scenes or kinks you'd like to see them explore leave a comment and let me know!


End file.
